5.  The applicant was born in 1958 and lives in Baku.
6.  The applicant stood for the elections to the National Assembly of 6 November 2005 as a candidate of the opposition bloc YeS (Yeni Siyasət). He was registered as a candidate by the Constituency Electoral Commission (“the ConEC”) for the single-member Hajiqabul‑Kurdamir Electoral Constituency no. 58.
7.  On 24 October 2005 the ConEC decided to apply to the Court of Appeal with a request to cancel the applicant’s registration as a candidate owing to the reports of his alleged involvement in activities incompatible with the requirements of the Electoral Code. According to the minutes of the ConEC meeting, seven members of the ConEC participated in the meeting. The applicant was not informed about this meeting in advance and was not invited to it. In support of its decision, the ConEC relied on three grounds, summarised below.
8.  Firstly, the ConEC noted that it had received written statements from four voters claiming that the applicant had either promised or given them money in exchange for their promise to vote for him. Two of them claimed that they had each received 100,000 old Azerbaijani manats (at that time, a sum equivalent to slightly less than 20 euros) in cash from the applicant and, as a proof of this claim, handed in this cash to the ConEC. None of these voters were heard in person by the ConEC. The ConEC considered that such actions by the applicant were contrary to Article 88.4.1-5 of the Electoral Code concerning the illegal means of gaining voter support.
9.  Secondly, relying on unspecified reports, the ConEC noted that the applicant had made public statements “against the constitutional foundations of the State” by advocating for the return to power of the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party and former President A. Mutalibov (who had been in exile for several years).
10.  Thirdly, the ConEC noted that on 24 October 2005 the applicant was planning to organise a demonstration in front of the ConEC building in order to protest against the cancellation of the registration of another candidate from the same constituency, which had taken place earlier.
11.  On 26 October 2005 the Court of Appeal examined the case and cancelled the applicant’s registration as a candidate, in accordance with Articles 88.4 and 113.2.3 of the Electoral Code. During the hearing, the applicant denied all the accusations and argued that the case had been fabricated and that the allegations of bribery had not been proven. Having regard to the ConEC’s submissions, the written statements of the four voters, and several banknotes sealed in plastic bags (as “material evidence”), the Court of Appeal found that the applicant had offered money to voters in exchange for their votes in his favour, thus breaching Article 88.4 of the Electoral Code. It appears that the court considered that this was a sufficient ground for the cancellation of the applicant’s registration and did not examine the other two grounds mentioned in the ConEC’s request.
12.  According to the applicant, four members of the ConEC (two of whom had allegedly participated in the meeting of 24 October 2005) wrote affidavits, addressed to the Court of Appeal, in which they claimed that the alleged ConEC meeting of 24 October 2005 had actually not taken place and that the minutes of that meeting, submitted to the Court of Appeal, constituted a false document. These affidavits were not accepted by the Court of Appeal because they had not been notarised. Subsequently, three of the above ConEC members wrote similar notarised affidavits addressed to the Supreme Court, while one of them retracted his earlier statement.
13.  According to the Government, on 26 October 2005 one of the above‑mentioned ConEC members, S.Q., wrote another affidavit in which he retracted his previous statement and maintained that he had been forced by the applicant and his representatives to write a statement that there had been no ConEC meeting.
14.  The applicant lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, arguing that the allegations against him had been fabricated and that the evidence used against him had been tenuous, uncorroborated and wrongly assessed. In support of his submissions he attached, inter alia, the above-mentioned affidavits by the ConEC members.
15.  On 2 November 2005 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the Court of Appeal’s judgment of 26 October 2005. It refused to admit the documents submitted by the applicant, finding that the factual circumstances of the case had been duly established by the lower court and that it could examine the case only on points of law.